


Vacui

by Plumasicera



Category: Naruto
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Light Angst, M/M, Naruto loves him so much, Pre-Relationship, They are ninjas, no one dies, references to hypothetical suicide, they've seen too much death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-19
Updated: 2020-05-19
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:02:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24276310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Plumasicera/pseuds/Plumasicera
Summary: It certainly hurts, loving him. It hurts so much that sometimes Naruto wishes he could rip his heart out or turn it to stone, anything before Sasuke consumes it into his darkness and leaves nothing behind.
Relationships: Uchiha Sasuke/Uzumaki Naruto
Comments: 6
Kudos: 50





	Vacui

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote it back on 2015 so it's not exactly canon compliant, though I guess it could be read that way?

Lonely, Naruto contemplates the horizon from the highest hill in Konoha. At his feet, his village, and a little closer the faces of the Hokage. The cracked rock, battered by wind, sun, and the scars of too many wounds stands rough and solid above the town.

Naruto’s face, carved in the stone, watches his home vigilantly.

There aren’t many differences between the two. The firm lines, the straight jaw, the strength in the features, the solemn gesture— everything is so faithful to the original that it’s overwhelming. Even the eyes are— blind, hard, watching from above like an intangible and constant warning.

War has taken many things and sometimes Naruto, deep inside him, can’t help but think he will never get over it. It’s not something visible, not even conscious, but the thought is always there, incessant, feeding his doubts and his fears and eating away at his soul like a disease. He has seen too much death and a small part of him wishes he could give up.

He doesn’t, though. He has a reason to keep going, and as long as it exists, it will keep him on his feet, fighting to his last breath.

It’s enough, and he doesn’t need anything else.

He doesn’t move when he feels a presence materializing behind him, or when the person ( _Sasuke_ , his mind supplies eagerly even now) moves and reaches the point where Naruto is sitting, on the very edge of the hill. He stands there, tall and beautiful against the horizon, with his eyes fixed on the fall opening at his feet, and it truly makes a beautiful effect, his figure so black contrasting to the increasingly clear sky.

Naruto stares at his profile, leisurely following the curve of his jaw and the descending line of his nape, and Sasuke seems to wait patiently for Naruto to finish.

It happens in the blink of an eye. Without saying a word Sasuke leans forward and for a brief moment it looks like he’s going to fall— but his knees bend at the last second and he ends up sitting next to him. Naruto, heart pounding hard at the lump in his throat, slowly closes his eyes and exhales the air he has suddenly held. Sometimes he hates that macabre fixation of Sasuke of pushing things to the limit and then changing his mind at the last moment and stopping one step before the abyss, both literally and figuratively.

He did it that time, at the Valley of the End, when on the verge of killing him and finishing everything, he ended up backing away from the cliff.

He did it with Orochimaru, too, when it looked like nothing and no one could prevent him from falling and at the last moment he turned and stabbed the snake.

He did it again after everything (after war, and blood, and dead brothers and broken promises), when Sasuke seemed to have hit rock bottom and yet he was able to come to a stop right on the edge surprising everyone.

It certainly hurts, loving him. It hurts so much that sometimes Naruto wishes he could rip his heart out or turn it to stone, anything before Sasuke consumes it into his darkness and leaves nothing behind.

He knows too well that it’s too late for that.

Naruto’s eyes slide across the sky and he ends up watching the infinite fall that stretches before him. The question escapes his lips before he can control it.  
  
“Ever wanted to jump?”

Sasuke cocks his head to him and then follows his gaze. He doesn’t respond, and when Naruto begins to believe he’s not going to, his voice reaches him.

“Always. All the time,” he confesses with that impassivity that makes him so distant, as if nothing matters to him.

The answer doesn’t surprise Naruto, although it still sticks into him. He doesn’t understand why he has asked something he already knows or why a part of him still hopes for a different answer. He knows Sasuke’s not compassionate enough to lie to him. He lacks heart. Instead he has an abyss and Naruto knows full well that he will always carry it within himself, and neither Naruto nor anyone else will ever remove the dark pull that urges him to fall.  
  
It hurts, it really hurts knowing with an irrefutable conviction that, in the end, he couldn’t save him.

“The mission has been successfully completed,” Sasuke finally informs, dispassionate and formal, following the guidelines of a totally useless procedure because Naruto would never send him on a mission that he couldn’t fulfill so he already knows that, of course, the mission has been a success. “The full report is in your office.”

Like a machine. He’s like a goddamn machine. Fast, efficient, effective. The end of the war meant the end of Sasuke, even of that Sasuke who was no longer Sasuke, and what remains now is like an unstable mirage Naruto fears will disappear as soon as he gets distracted.

Still, Naruto wants to believe that Sasuke did it for him; that if at the last moment Sasuke decided to abandon all his plans and return broken and empty instead of surrendering himself to death, he did it for him, but the doubt exists and it stings too much to think about it that often. To consider there could be another reason would end all and any hope of healing Sasuke’s emptiness and that isn’t something Naruto can afford.

Again he stares at him intently, follows the arch of his eyebrow, the road down his throat, the agile and flexible muscles he guesses under his clothes.

God.

He would give everything, _anything_ , to have him back.

“I love you,” he says, and the feeling lands hard on his tongue and seems to burn his heart. It swells achingly inside him and he can hardly endure it. “I love you, Sasuke.”

There’s so much he would like to say, so much he would like to promise, that words get tangled in his throat and it’s as if he were choking. To tell him that it’s worth going on, that he will make it worthwhile. To promise him that he will be able to give him back his life, his motivation, the will that once drove him and made him Sasuke, the indomitable Sasuke. That he himself will be the Naruto he used to be.

The sun rises over the horizon and a warm light bathes them both without Naruto saying a word.

“You shouldn’t,” is the lacerating answer.

“I do,” he insists.

He thinks he sees a muscle tighten in Sasuke’s jaw, but perhaps he had just imagined it. It really doesn’t matter whether he imagined it or not but he’d rather think he didn’t; he’d rather think that under all this pain, all that emptiness, after the heavy weight of loss and the buried hopes there’s still something left for him. That Sasuke will do it once more and he will wait for him at the edge, and that Naruto will be the reason that keeps Sasuke from jumping.

That he will be enough. Just like Sasuke to him.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
